DO NOT BUY A FLATBED WITH A TRANSPARENCY UNIT. I thought this would be the way to go (since I personally use 3 different film formats...35, Medium, and 4x5). so I bought an epson expression 636 with TPU.(worst purchase decision I have made in a long time) You will be SO disappointed with the results, and the resulting "noise" and lack of sharpness from these types of scans makes your images almost unuseable. To my knowledge, there are no desktop scanners that will do 4x5 film... Almost all desktop film scanners do APS(BOOOOO) and 35mm. There are a few that will now go up to medium format (120 film) Minolta, and Nikon both make models that I know of, but they cost around 3000$US.(new) There are some new desktop "drum" scanners ($$$$$) but even these will only handle up to medium format. So I guess what I'm saying is...If you don't shoot medium format, then you have LOTS of choices for affordable 35mm film scanners. And If you do get a large format camera, you are better off taking your images to get scanned by pros. (I don't reccommend EVER sending your original negs/slides anywhere...photoCDs,etc. Try to get involved in the process.) Just remember..If you want to scan film and slides, get a FILM scanner.